Subpoena seeks Nashville hospital's drug records related to NECC

Jul. 10, 2013

Nashville attorney Gerard Stranch

Written by

Walter F. Roche Jr.

The Tennessean

A subpoena has been issued for records relating to the use of a cardiac drug from a defunct Massachusetts compounding firm on patients at TriStar Centennial Medical Center, and the facility may fight the request.

Nashville attorney J. Gerard Stranch said that at least one lot of the drug cardioplegia shipped by the New England Compounding Center was found by federal officials to be contaminated. NECC has been blamed by state and federal officials for a nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis caused by tainted spinal steroid from NECC.

Stranch represents several victims of the meningitis outbreak and heads a committee coordinating the plaintiffs’ claims in a consolidated case now before a federal judge in Boston.

Records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration show that dozens of doses of cardioplegia were shipped to Centennial from NECC between May and late September of last year. The FDA reported that 40 separate shipments were made to Centennial in amounts of three to 20 doses.

Stranch said he had one client who received cardioplegia while at Centennial and later received a letter from the facility telling him that he might have been treated with a tainted drug. He said the patient had complications following heart surgery.

He said his firm was evaluating the case to see how much of those complications might be attributed to the tainted solution and how much to some other cause.

In papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston, a New York City law firm, Debevoise and Plimpton LLP, stated that it had been retained to represent Centennial “for the purpose of contesting or otherwise responding to the subpoenas.”

Jacqueline Garneau, a spokeswoman for Centennial, said, “We are aware of the subpoena. We’re reviewing it and will respond appropriately.”

Last week lawyers for the Saint Thomas Outpatient Neurosurgical Center and the Howell Allen Clinic also filed a motion to quash subpoenas filed by the plaintiffs, charging that it was “a fishing expedition for potential clients.”